Listless in July

I feel deflated by June...

I did well on my goals of using up yarn, but sales were downright crummy. The one craft show I had on the schedule was cut short by wind and rain, making that day a total loss.

I'm in the midst of the worst Etsy sales drought since February.

So in July, I'm not going to make lists of stuff to get done... I'm going going to work on cute little items for the Street Fest on July 27th.

I'm going to try to celebrate "non-sale victories", like using up some yarn I've been trying to finish off, finishing a project, using a pattern I've wanted to get to for ages, getting a nice compliment or review, making something for myself.

I'll still post some pictures here... but last month's post only got three views, so sometimes I wonder why I bother.

Sales drought was broken with two Etsy orders in the early days of July.

Took a day off from work to have a beach day with family... with nearly four hours riding shotgun in the car, and time in the shade at the beach, I finished off eight bottle slings! I think I'm well stocked on bottle slings for the 7/27 Street Fest!

In one of my many Facebook crochet groups, someone asked "what are your best sellers at craft shows?" One woman posted a picture of a basket of "chill pills" and said she sells out at virtually every show... So...

I'm plugging away at Clarence the Farmer Cow (a paid pattern I picked up a few years ago because it was just so cute, but I never had a chance to make one) and a red pick-up truck for a crochet-along (didn't win a free pattern for week one... but there are still a few more weeks to win... and sometimes the designer says "everyone who finished wins a free pattern").

I've been trying to celebrate more of the little victories lately... like getting a picture of some cute babies with toys that I made... finishing off some yarn I've had in my stash for years... getting a compliment on how cute my stuff is. Yea for those moments!

Since Clarence and the pickup truck are both patterns from Holly's Hobbies, I posed them together for this week's picture showing that I finished this week's tasks. 

Clarence has overalls and a hat now.

An order for two giraffes like these has kept me busy for the last few days....

I took a break from the giraffes to use up some yarn that I had by my chair... kept thinking "this would make a cute snake..." 

It did.

Finished up the giraffe order...

Then moved on to a fun project... a set of four pastel owls in a pastel nest!
This one is just for fun, to replace one that sold a few months back... it's using up some small balls of scrap yarn, which is an extra bonus!

Then came the much-awaited day... East Aurora Street Fest. This was my second year doing this show, and last year it took knocked a Christmas show out of first place in my spreadsheet of craft shows. Things started slowly, as I didn't get my first sale for an hour and a half, but it knocked last year out of first place, by 8%. Although the cost to set up at this show is higher than most, my net sales were 6 times my average for craft shows! I'm thankful for the guy who stopped at the stand last year and said I should make up water bottle slings in every color... 2/3 of my sales were water bottle slings!

Oops, the rack of bottle slings is out of the picture... you can just see the edge of it in the lower left.

So, for these last few days of July, I'll try to finish up an order and a crochet-along, then focus on remaking sold items and getting my A.C. Moore Marketplace shop stocked during August. 

June Goals

Well, I'm pretty much done with my May goals, so I'm looking at June. Here is my Penguin Pail (bucket list) for June. 

1) Finish the Outlander Cape that I thought I had finished, but had to tear out because I messed up. (Done - picture coming soon)

2) Finish the scrappy slippers I started and lost interest in -  DONE

3) Make 10 more bottle slings (DONE)

4) Finish 13th Doctor Scarf (oops, got 1 row done...)

5) Make 15 items from the “unfiled” yarn (four trays and a bag of yarn from previous projects or recent garage sale purchase that I haven’t put into Ravelry stash… will be easier to use it up than to enter it!) I will try to stick to projects I think will be good sellers, like geckos, dragons, mermaid and unicorns...although I'm sure other patterns will come up that are just so cute I can't resist! 

One of the four trays. The green and pink, and the three little balls of yarn in the lower right went into a mermaid doll at the end of May. 

Did I say four? Oops, I meant five!

Made progress...I'm down to three trays! 

First of 15... a Micro Dragon. On May 31st, I made a mom/baby gecko set, and thought that the baby gecko looked like a wingless, spikeless dragon... so I played with it and made a tiny dragon.

#2 was a donut with pink sparkly sprinkles, to match a gecko order. #3 was a bottle sling... didn't take a picture. 

#4 - Albino Pacman Frog, to replace one sold on Sunday

Project box is loaded, ready to churn out some more cute little projects! 

For project #5, I went "outside the box"...when I went to my room to get a sweater, I saw a small ball of blue cotton crochet thread... so I combined it with some white crochet cotton, and made a bottle sling. I love how it turned out! I call it "Cool Blue". 

Project #6 did actually come out of the scrap box I made up... I got an adorable pattern from Trifles n Treasures called Geoffrey and Lulu that has TWO patterns... a cute little giraffe, and a llama. I just had to make Lulu the Llama! 

She is less than 6" tall, so I made her one in one evening... but I decided she needed a blanket or poncho or something bright... because that's how llamas roll. I pulled some more bright colors from the project box, and made her a poncho. This morning, someone told me that I picked out the colors from the Colombian flag. I love the pattern and will be making more of these cuties! 

Scrappy Hedgehog is #7. Attaching all those strands of yarn took time, but it made my scrap yarn bag a lot emptier! 

#8 - another "cool blue" bottle sling

#9 - Finished off the cotton thread with a "cool blue dishcloth"

#10 - Rainbow Elephant! 

11. Patchwork Pup

I'm starting to hashtag finished items with #penguinpailjune2019

Puppy got a dog bed, blanket, bone and bowl... If I counted each one as an item, I'd be done with the 15 items... but I'll clump them all together. 

#12 is for an order: a little green car

#13 is a little Royal Blue car... and #14, light blue car, is started! 

#14 Finished... 

#15 was a bone to send along with an Etsy order of a red puppy

Kept on going with some little cars (two of them sold in a local order)

And another bottle sling... 

And an otter, for the Friendly Red Fox crochet-along

#thefriendlycrochetclub

And a chocolate chip doughnut

Then I decided I'd better do some work on clearing up the big projects I had on my list: 

Only about 20 rows to go to finish up the Outlander Capelet. (6/18)

Back to some scrap yarn projects... Made a "Dragon Car"... and then made another!

My granddaughter picked out this yarn and asked me to make a lizard. So I made two: one for her, one for my shop. 

Then I finished up a little mermaid for a CAL (crochet-along)

Finished up a rainbow lovey, using up more small quantities of yarn from my trays. 

Then I made a penguin... a new Crochet-Along from The Friendly Red Fox

I found a cute new pattern for "Jellyfish Splashers"... like reusable water balloons, only cuter! 

Then it was back to water bottle slings...

And more water bottle slings...

And more... and I think I made two more after this pic!